Power and Empire

Successful surveillance operations took several teams to do them correctly — and safely. Especially if the subject decided to run SDRs — surveillance detection routes — which Eddie Feng did not. In fact, he’d committed the OPSEC fail from hell by never looking behind him and seemed completely blind to the possibility that someone might want to follow him. Ryan couldn’t figure out if the man was stupid or merely bad at tradecraft.

Clark decided Ryan and Chavez would go into Chicas Peligrosas and get an eyeball on Feng, note the lay of the land inside. They would rotate out with Midas and Dom if Feng stayed too long. Midas’s years working with the unit in Central and South America had made him conversant in Spanish. Dom spoke Italian, which allowed him to grab the gist of Spanish conversations going on around him.

Adara spoke passable Spanish as well, but while females were not unheard of as patrons of strip clubs, her blond hair and athletic build were sure to draw unwanted attention from the very people they were there to watch.

As team leader, Clark took his job of oversight seriously — even with a goofball like Eddie Feng. “Everyone stay alert,” he said. “Don’t let the daylight lull you.”

“Roger that, Mr. C,” Ding said to his father-in-law.

“Here we go,” Ryan mumbled as they approached the door.

“You’re too young to be tired of looking at naked girls,” Chavez said.

“Not naked girls per se,” Ryan said. “Just the kind that hang out in places like this.”

“I hear you there, ’mano,” Chavez said.

• • •

The odor of an old carpet stewed in cheap booze and stale cigarettes hit Ryan in the face as soon as he opened the door.

“Well, this sucks,” he said under his breath as soon as he stepped across the threshold. He’d fully expected to see a handful of triad or cartel types, but was startled to find one of the largest Hispanic men he’d ever seen sitting beside a magnetometer, presumably to check IDs. Pushing seven feet tall, the big guy had to weigh in at a good 350 pounds. Much of his bulk was fat, but Jack had learned from experience that heavy guys built up a considerable amount of muscle just hauling their own weight around. This one eclipsed the small stool he was sitting on, completely blocking the entry. A tattoo of what looked like a female version of Death stuck up from the collar of his T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved or showered in a long time, and Ryan was surprised they hadn’t gotten wind of him outside. He half expected “Fee fi fo fum” to be the first words out of the guy’s mouth.

Instead, the big man grunted and asked, “¿Armas?” giving Ryan, and then Chavez, the evil-eye once-over. Guns?

Ryan hunched his shoulders, slouching some to look less threatening than his six-foot-one frame would normally indicate. There was a time to be intimidating, and this was not it. Bouncers paid a hell of a lot more attention to tough guys than they did to nervous pushovers with bleached tips. Both men were indeed strapped, each carrying a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield nine-millimeter. The small, single-stack pistols were virtually invisible under the men’s shirts, but even so, guns could be explained away. Dopers carried guns. Hell, half the people in Texas did. The wire neck-loop mics and the rest of the comms package, however, would likely earn them each a hole in the head.

Jack assumed the dozen Asian and Hispanic men in the place were armed, but management evidently wanted to double-check any new faces. Chavez started to say something in Spanish, but Jack noticed just in time that the cord at the base of the magnetometer was unplugged from the wall. He gave his partner a quick elbow in the ribs.

“No armas,” Ryan said, eyes on the dancers as if he was enthralled — trying his best for a lecherous-college-boy look. “We’re all about the girls, not the guns.” He peeled a couple twenty-dollar bills off a roll from his pocket and gave the big guy an embarrassed grin. “To tell you the truth, this is my first time in a titty bar. Do we pay the cover charge to you or what?”

The twenties looked like Monopoly money in the big guy’s massive hands as he snatched them away. He lifted his chin and grunted toward a trio of skinny Asian girls swaying on the stage. “They’ll dance better if you give them a little cash, but hands off the merchandise unless you work out an extra arrangement with me or Manolo — the bald guy in the white shirt at the end of the stage.”

“Got it.” Ryan gave a compliant nod and gulped for effect, his eyes wide and seemingly transfixed on the poor gyrating women. A dozen low tables ran in front of the stage, some occupied by small groups of Hispanic or Asian men. Triad or cartel according to their significant ink, each stuck with his own ethnicity. Two rosy-cheeked white guys in City of Dallas municipal worker coveralls occupied the nearest table. Ryan counted sixteen patrons in all, counting Manolo and the Asian man with the ridiculous fauxhawk sitting at the table beside him.

That one had to be Eddie Feng.

• • •